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Posts Tagged ‘Ecommerce’

3 Ecommerce Website Store Trends

posted by Authority SEO
Wednesday, September 9, 2009

If you want to open an Ecommerce online store it is easier than ever.  There are many different options that allow users with no to little programming experience build an online store to sell their products.  The question comes how do you seperate yourself from your competition.  My first answer would be SEO.  If you can out rank your competition for not just major keywords though the thousands of different ways your customers are searching for your products right now you will be successful.

Videos are one Ecommerce trend you could implement without any tech knowledge

For the purpose of this post though we are looking at Ecommerce website store trends which are going to demonstrate more professionalism and hopefully work to convert more visitors to sales.  The goal of these trends are to increase conversion percentage though these are not listed as tested ways to increase conversions, simply trends in where online stores are going.

3 Ecommerce Website Store Trends

  1. Videos: with the use of embed codes videos are easy to add to your website.  Videos offer the visitor greater access to what your products or services offer.  Also, videos increase time on the site which Google tracks and uses as a way to determine if people are liking your website.  Load your video onto a any of the video sites and then copy and paste the embed code into your website.  I personally really like Vimeo.com which has professional options that you can customize into your look and feel.
  2. Content Sliders: content sliders are the carousels that websites use to showcase certain products with photos and descriptions that visitors can rotate through.  Content sliders increase the tech “know how” which in turns increases the web visitors confidence that your online store is professional.
  3. Go Large: if you have noticed big is in.  Large product images, big banners, gigantic font, and so on is the latest trend in Ecommerce websites.  More people now have larger screen sizes and better updated browsers can handle the load times.  All of these factors allow bigger to be better.  Larger images and text draw the eyes to where you want them and are easier to read.  You have 3-5 seconds to grab your visitor into staying.  Going large makes that job easier for people to instantly understand what your website is about.

You are looking at the stats of your Google Analytics and you see foreign countries that have visited your ecommerce online store.  Won’t it be great if those people could read your products in their own language.  Yes, we could be myopic and think that they should just learn English.  Business is about opportunities and right now very few online stores are taking advantage of all the potential customers who speak different languages.  Especially even in the United States that has a heavily populated Hispanic population.

To translate your store you have to do more than Google translator

Google has a feature called Google Translator that will translate any web page into your language.  This sounds good though as you know not everything translates perfectly from language to language.

For those websites that want to capture non English speaking customers than you want to think about in terms of a commitment to making your website available for those non English speaking customers than just a quick fix.

5 Tips for Translating your Ecommerce Website

  1. Rephrase: phrases mean different things in different languages.  You want to take the time to find out how different cultures call things differently.  For example if you are selling pocket knives you may call them folding knives in Spanish.
  2. Translation Sheet: make a list of common terms used on your website, for example “On Sale.”  You many use this term hundreds to thousands of times throughout your website though you only want to pay to have it translated once.
  3. Hire a Real Person: you will find that if you use a program to translate your website there will be all sorts of errors which you don’t even know about because you don’t speak the language.  You will make the money back in conversions and more sales if you hire a professional translator to match what you want to say into the right phrase in the new language.
  4. Translation Memory: you can get a software program to track already translated terms and phrases.  This way you don’t have to hire a translator or a foreign language writer every time you add a new product.
  5. Review: this works for your website in English as well.  It is vital that you review and look over your translated sections of your website.  You may have to hire a professional to do this.  Look for broken links not just errors in the text.

Ecommerce websites are always looking on how to increase conversions.  Sometimes a website owner can tinker with their website so much with different items that they decrease conversions.  The following are three items that have been shown to increase conversions which means you increase sales without more traffic to your website.

If you haven’t spent time on your conversion percentage, now is the time

Increasing sales through conversion percentage is always important though it can be even more important with the holiday season approaching.  Ecommerce websites need to have everything in place months before the holiday season to make sure all the bugs are out.  You don’t want to be making changes to your website the day before Cyber Monday.

3 Ecommerce Website Upgrades that Increase Sales

  1. Perpetual shopping carts: there are many different versions of perpetual shopping carts based on the company you chose.  The idea is the same though that a dynamic photo of items added to your shopping cart are displayed for the visitor.  This a visual reminder that there are items in their shopping cart and decreases shopping cart abandonment.  You can also have price and shipping costs displayed with the photo.
  2. Internal site search: hopefully your ecommerce website has a site search capability which allows visitors to search your site for the exact products or items they are looking for.  Customers consistently prefer site search over using your category navigation, especially if they know what they want.  You can optimize your site search to display items that are expiring first, largest profit margins first, or any other format that would optimize your ability to promote or move inventory.
  3. Better product pages: when is the last time you looked at the display page for your products.  Enhanced displays to offer more photos, details, and maybe even videos can increase the percentage of web visitors who purchase.  It is important that these items flow and don’t clutter up the page.  You can also have the most vital information with a large add to cart button “above the fold” while allowing those that want more info to find it by scrolling down on the page.  Adding more photo options is an easy way to increase the display of your product pages.

5 Ecommerce Tips You Can Implement Today

posted by Authority SEO
Saturday, August 22, 2009

Every ecommerce website owner is always looking for ways to increase sales, lower costs, and make their marketing plan more effective.  Often small business owners get lost in the details of what they are already doing for their Internet marketing.  The goal of this article is to give the small business owner 5 tips that they can implement immediately that will support their overall efforts to increase profit from their website.

Having your entire team understand how they can play a role in your SEO can pay huge dividends with extra links and content for your business

5 Ecommerce Tips You Can Implement Today

  1. Google Alerts: Google Alerts is a free service that sends email alerts anytime a keyword of your choosing is indexed by Google including blogs, news, and organic results.  You can use this tool in two ways.  First, you can track any reference of your company online so you know what people are saying about you.  Second, you can track major keywords that your team is working on so you will know anytime Google has indexed that keyword with reference to your website.
  2. Keyword Research: Many companies don’t spend the time doing keyword research to discover all of the different keyword phrases people are using to search for your respected business.  For every major keyword relevant to your business there are at least a thousand different keyword phrases using your major keyword that people are typing into search engines right now.
  3. Security: As your website grows so does your need for added security.  Do you know why Apple computers have so few viruses, because 98% of people use PCs.  Hackers go where the action is.  When you are effective with your SEO then you will become a target for hackers, so keeping up to date with all security protocols becomes vital.  Even Twitter was hacked and broke down for a few hours just a week ago.
  4. Coordinate: Does your entire team know what pages on your site your SEO team is focusing on and what keywords.  Many important factors that will enhance your rankings can come from other parts of your team who can get high quality links from the relationships they are creating.  For example, your sales team understanding that links are important can work out adding a link to your website from a new vendor which can have tremendous power, and a link like that an SEO expert has no access to.
  5. Promotion: Add features to your website that allow for you to easy change out promotions and upcoming events.  Many websites have static header graphics and right/ left side borders.  By making certain key areas editable for promotions you can promote specific sales instantly throughout your website including holiday specials as the season grows near.